The present invention relates to a building element for a toy building set comprising a plurality of such building elements, said building elements comprising a box-shaped body part having a surface with a top side and an underside, and a plurality of side faces extending downwards from the underside of the surface, a plurality of coupling flanges being arranged between the side faces, said coupling flanges extending downwards from the surface at a distance which is smaller than the distance at which the side faces extend from the surface, a plurality of coupling studs being arranged on the top side of the surface, each of said coupling studs having a top face positioned at a height above the top side of the surface which is greater than the difference between the distance at which the coupling flanges and the side faces extend from the surface, said coupling studs, coupling flanges and side faces being shaped such that the coupling studs of a building element, when said building element is interconnected with another corresponding building element, engage both the coupling flanges and the side faces of another building element after interconnection of these.
GB Patent No. 1 231 489 discloses a toy building set comprising such building elements. The purpose of the coupling flanges extending from the surface at a smaller distance from the underside of the surface with respect to the corresponding distance of the side flanges is that the building element may hereby be mounted on top of building elements which are provided with coupling studs of other shapes, so that e.g. building elements of different types having a different distance between the coupling studs may be interconnected without the coupling flanges making the interconnection impossible.
In such building sets it is important that all building elements of the building set comply with fixed modular measures which characterize the building set, such as a fixed modularized height, width and length of the body parts of the building elements, as well as a fixed modularized distance between the individual coupling studs, side flanges and coupling flanges. This is required to ensure that the building set allows different models to be built in an easy manner.
A problem of the above-mentioned known building elements, however, is that just the side faces form an engagement face which, upon interconnection of the building elements, creates the correct modular height of the individual building element, so that if two building elements are interconnected staggered from each other such that one building element only engages a single side flange of the other building element, then an oblique and unstable interconnection will be the result.
It has been attempted to solve this in GB Patent No. 1 231 489 by providing the coupling flanges with a plurality of pins which extend in extension of the coupling flanges until they are flush with the plane which is formed by the side flanges. The above-mentioned drawback is remedied hereby, but a problem of this solution is that this embodiment can only be used for the interconnection of another type of elements having a single type of coupling studs, and that the protruding pins of the coupling flanges form undesired, relatively sharp edges.
Accordingly, the object of the present invention is to provide a building element for a toy building set of the type mentioned in the opening paragraph, which may be interconnected with building elements of another type without this making special demands on the shape of the coupling studs on the other type of building element, while achieving a stable and correct interconnection of two uniform building elements which do not overturn with respect to each other upon interconnection.
This is achieved according to the invention by a building element of the type mentioned in the opening paragraph, said building element being unique in that a plurality of engagement means is arranged between the coupling flanges and the side faces, said engagement means being shaped and positioned in such a manner that they form an engagement face which engages the top face of the coupling studs upon interconnection of two building elements.
The building element according to the present invention comprises at least four coupling studs, and the coupling studs are preferably positioned in a square pattern.
A particularly stable interconnection is achieved if the top face of the coupling studs is substantially plane and parallel with the surface of the building element.
In a preferred embodiment of the invention, the coupling flanges are shaped as tubes positioned such that, upon interconnection of a first building element on which they are positioned and a second building element, they engage and extend down between four adjacent coupling studs on the second building element.
The engagement means preferably comprise a plurality of engagement flanges which extend from the underside of the surface and downwards at a distance which corresponds to the difference between the distance of the side faces from the surface and the height of the coupling studs.
In addition, the engagement faces may advantageously be directly connected with the coupling flanges and extend at an angle out from these, so as to achieve a stable interconnection of two interconnected elements, in that the engagement means are positioned relatively remotely from the side flanges of the building element.
In a further preferred embodiment, the engagement flanges are positioned at the point on the coupling flanges where the coupling studs touch the coupling flanges upon interconnection of two building elements according to the invention.
In this connection, the building elements may advantageously have coupling studs which are shaped as substantially cylindrical tubes.